Wikipedia:Requests for mediation/Naturalistic pantheism

Formal mediation case
Formal mediation case
Article	Naturalistic pantheism (talk)
Opened	02 Sep 2012
Mediator	ItsZippy (talk)
Status	Closed
Notes	None
	view; talk; edit; delete; watch;

Mediation of this case has been completed, and the case is retained here for reference.

The case was closed because: The parties to the dispute stopped responding to comments from a mediator.. If mediation of this case again becomes necessary, a new request for mediation may be submitted.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Naturalistic pantheism

Users involved in dispute

Steven Zhang (talk · contribs), filing party - DRN volunteer, uninvolved.
Allisgod (talk · contribs)
Naturalistic (talk · contribs)

Articles concerned in this dispute

Naturalistic pantheism (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
Pantheism (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Other steps of dispute resolution that have been attempted

Dispute resolution noticeboard discussion.

Issues to be mediated

All aspects of article content over which there is disagreement should be listed here. The filing party should define the scope under "Primary issues", which is used to frame the case; other parties to the dispute can list other issues under "Additional issues", and can contest the primary issues on case talk page.

Primary issues

Noelander has provided an excellent neutral summary of the dispute here.
Sorry Anthony. Essentially, the core content issue that the two parties cannot agree on how to detail on the definition of pantheism and naturalistic pantheism in the articles, nor can they agree on which sources to use given the sources they have on hand (which also need to be reliable, and that's in dispute too).

Some more thoughts: The question is how much weight to assign to the various definitions of "naturalistic pantheism" within the articles Naturalistic pantheism and pantheism. The term is not a widely used term (compared to, say, plain "pantheism") but where it is used, each authority tends to assign to it a unique meaning. There are some older uses of the term dating back to early 20th century (and perhaps late 19th century); and in the late 20th century, there emerged some modern pantheism movement(s) that adopted the term, and turned it to their own belief systems. The question is how much emphasis to place in the article to the various meanings of the term. The dispute has a bit of a conflict-of-interest aspect to it because one of the editors, user Naturalistic, who has stated he is Paul Harrison (pantheist), is a leader of a modern pantheism movement, World Pantheist Movement, and has published a book on the subject - Elements of Pantheism. I have not detected any significant violations of WP policy by Naturalistic ... at worst, he is a bit enthusiastic about emphasizing his own movement's view of pantheism. But he is well-informed and well-intentioned. User Allisgod is also a helpful editor, and (I believe) has the view that the older/historical definitions of "naturalistic pantheism" should carry more weight than modern meanings. It should be a simple matter to enumerate the various sources that have used the term, to group them into a handful of major groupings/definitions, and then decide how much weight each should get. --Noleander (talk) 21:44, 2 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with Noleander's assessment of the first dispute, over Pantheism. I don't think that summary is neutral or accurate but this is not the place to raise that. The assessment above is fairer, but not entirely accurate.

In the current version of Naturalistic Pantheism I have personally removed all references to my own book and I intend to stick to that policy in future. In have cut a long section on the World Pantheist Movement inserted by someone else (not by me) to a single line.

The article as of my last edit of 00:16, 1 September 2012‎ now covers the widest range of uses of the term in the intro. Please note that the uses are in the great majority of cases consistent with the seperate meanings of the two words of the term - "naturalistic" and "pantheism" - which is precisely what one would expect.

Moreover, I am not pushing the World Pantheist Movement's interpretation of Naturalistic Pantheism at all. I am concerned with accuracy and neutrality. Nor am I concerned primarily with more modern interpretations but also with classical and oriental examples and indeed from all periods. Spinoza is always included. Allisgod's approach is far more limited and he wishes to focus every Pantheism article heavily on Spinoza and determinism. He has made it plain many times in talk sections that he believes that pantheism implies determinism, and he has repeatedly attempted to insert this point in articles.

There are other conflicts of interest besides having published a book on the subject and running an organization related to the subject. I have never allowed these interests to affect my dedication to neutral and accurate editing.

Having a strong personal belief about a topic is also a conflict of interest, and editing in line with that strong personal belief is POV editing. This occurs in religious and political articles all the time. Allisgod's conflict is that he has expressed in the talk pages a strong personal view of what Pantheism means (determinism, Spinoza, Hartshorne's Classical Pantheism) and he has allowed that personal view to shape his edits in a very dramatic and clear way. He also has a strong bias against even the expression Naturalistic Pantheism, even though it's been around for at least 120 years. He began by saying that I invented the term, then he tried to get the whole Naturalistic Pantheism article deleted and failed, then he set out to edit Naturalistic Pantheism so that it would look almost exactly like Classical Pantheism - deterministic and focussed on Spinoza.

As for a method of proceeding, enumerating and categorizing the various sources would be a Herculean task - Google Books gives 1640 or 1830 book results for the phrase "Naturalistic Pantheism" (depending on whether you have additional search words) which can only be copied as images, not as text.

Interpreting sources is not always straightforward. We have already witnessed that Allisgod and myself are looking in many cases at exactly the same sources, and not agreeing as to what those sources say. And with so many sources it is very easy to select the ones that fit one's own viewpoint. Personally I started at the first result and worked through the next four of five pages, and I have images of each citation that I can share with anyone who would like to see them.

I have been using a search method at Google Books that identifies how many of the 1640 results for the phrase "Naturalistic Pantheism" mention the issues that Allisgod claims are central. The method is easy, you just enter the following search (removing the ? marks) ?"Naturalistic Pantheism"?; then ?"Naturalistic Pantheism" -Spinoza?; then ?"Naturalistic Pantheism" -determinism -deterministic?; then ?"Naturalistic Pantheism" -Tillich.

These are the results:

Total for "Naturalistic Pantheism": 1640

Of which, number which DO NOT mention:

Spinoza: 1290(82%)

Tillich: 1580(96%)

Determimism, determinist or deterministic: 1455 (89%)

The determinism number is likely an underestimate, in that I added together the separate results for each one of the three words. In fact some texts may use one, two, or all three of the words.

Please note that using the higher number of 1830 results would increase the above percentages.

To summarize: the Google Book search results show that, out of the books in Google Book search that mention the phrase "Naturalistic Pantheism," 82% do not mention Spinoza; 89% do not mention any variant of the word determinism; and 96% do not mention Tillich.

It's very clear from the above that to highlight the Naturalistic Pantheism article with stress on determinism, Spinoza or Tillich in the intro would be a very misleading view of the concept as it has been used over the years.
--Naturalistic (talk) 00:28, 3 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Additional issues (added by other parties)

Additional issue 1

I am in favor of genuinely neutral mediation. I was rather unhappy with the last attempt at dispute resolution over Pantheism, since it did not produce or even attempt any resolution between the parties but rather resulted in a judgment/direct involvement by a senior editor, which in my opinion was not what dispute resolution is supposed to do. In fact it emboldened Allisgod to mould the entire article to his preferences. I have avoided involvement since that time but will resume editing there soon.
However, there are now three diverse competing attempts at mediation about the Naturalistic Pantheism article. The first one started in Talk: Naturalistic Pantheism on August 31 following involvement by editor User: Dennis_Brown who offered his help. Instead of taking part in this User: Allisgod on September 1 lodged a request in Dispute_resolution_noticeboard#Naturalistic_pantheism for dispute resolution, asking not for dispute resolution but for an editor to help with sources. On September 2 User:Steven Zhang lodged a proposal for mediation at Requests_for_mediation/Naturalistic_pantheism.
Since these three would certainly repeat material three times over, and possibly result in confused on conflicting results, I think we should be mediating in a single place, not in three places. I am not familiar with Wikipedia policies about which place takes precedence.--Naturalistic (talk) 00:28, 3 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Additional issue 2

My issues with Allisgod are that I believe he has been editing Pantheism and Naturalistic Pantheism in a very POV manner driven by his stated strong biases in favor of determinism, Spinoza and Classical Pantheism and against Naturalistic Pantheism and the World Pantheist Movement. These biases have been blatantly expressed in the Talk pages, and his editing shows egregious examples of applying the biasses to Wikipedia articles. I would like the Pantheism article also to be the subject of this mediation. You can see good examples of the extreme anti-World Pantheist Movement bias in his recent changes to what used to be Pantheist organization section, which he rename green religions and added critical OR comments against the WPM and even the Universal Pantheist Society. He removed all mention of Naturalistic Pantheism from the Pantheism page, even though the Afd discussion recognized that this was a notable concept. These actions are so egregious and blatant that I would like to report his conduct to the appropriate forum.
Allisgod has been attempting to edit Naturalistic Pantheism with the same bias, plus Tillich, whereas the data on books mentioning Naturalistic Pantheism (see above) very clearly show that these are not mentioned by the great majority of books that mention "Naturalistic Pantheism."
I have been very unhappy with the state of the Pantheism article but Noleander's involvement has been rather off-putting, in that he appeared to me to behave in a non-neutral way, which has emboldened Allisgod to write the Pantheism article in a biassed manner.
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Naturalistic (talk • contribs) 01:08, 3 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Parties' agreement to mediation

All parties please indicate below whether they agree to mediation of this dispute; remember to sign your post. Extended comments should be made on case talk page. Every party listed above will be automatically notified that this request has been filed.

Agree (Though I will not be participating). Steven Zhang ^{Help resolve disputes!} 11:53, 2 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Agree (Allisgod (talk) 23:58, 2 September 2012 (UTC))[reply]
Agree --Naturalistic (talk) 00:40, 3 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Decision of the Mediation Committee

A member of the Mediation Committee will indicate whether this request is to be accepted or rejected. Notes concerning the request and questions to the parties may also be posed by a committee member in this section.

Question: I recognise Noleander's assessment of the disputants, but what aspects of article content are in dispute? AGK [•] 13:33, 2 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I expanded on the underlying content issues above in the "Primary issues" section. I feel I should apologize for even mentioning the behavior/motivations of the parties, but I think the mediators need to know the back story, in order to make sense of some of the older talk page discussions. --Noleander (talk) 21:47, 2 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Please feel absolutely no need to apologise. I was only concerned that, as extensive as your assessment was, it did not actually explain which aspects of the article are disputed. Your supplementary explanation, above, is very helpful; thank you for adding it so promptly. AGK [•] 22:27, 2 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Accept. We will assign a mediator to this case within two weeks. For the Mediation Committee, AGK [•] 12:00, 3 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Mediator assigned: ItsZippy (talk · contribs) has been assigned to this case. Discussion will commence on the talk page shortly. For the Mediation Committee, Xavexgoem (talk) 01:59, 4 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.